The Model Becomes a Bid
Anthropic is reportedly raising Amazon’s price while California secures Claude at a 50% discount. Austria’s European push adds jurisdiction to the same negotiation.
Soaring memory costs are posing existential threats to small electronics makers, amid thin margins, low supply chain leverage, and little room for price hikes
Earlier this year, Mono Technologies assembled and shipped nearly 1,000 units of its flagship product, a $600 router development kit.
Google's Earthquake Alerts system reached 11.4M+ Android users ahead of Venezuela's June 24 earthquakes, providing seconds or up to two minutes of prior notice
Jose Flores was driving with his family to see “Toy Story 5” on Wednesday in Caracas, Venezuela, when a loud earthquake alert went off on his wife's Google Android phone.
South Korea, Samsung, and SK Hynix say they plan to invest ~$590B to build a new chip complex, including four chipmaking plants and a chip packaging cluster
Companies to invest alongside South Korean government in factories to meet surging demand for memory chips
Letter: Austria is pushing the EU to consider hosting Anthropic within its borders, highlighting EU efforts to boost bloc independence from US and Chinese tech
Austria is pushing the European Union to consider hosting Anthropic PBC within its borders to counter US efforts to block foreigners …
Filing: Strategy paused its bitcoin acquisitions last week, instead topping up its USD reserve to $2.55B and announcing a $1B digital credit buyback program
Quick Take — Strategy paused its bitcoin acquisition last week despite raising $1.15 billion in MSTR proceeds, with its total holdings remaining at 847,363 BTC.
DeepSeek details DSpark, a speculative decoding framework for its V4 models, saying it speeds up AI inference by up to 85% and was tested on Gemma and Qwen
Chinese artificial intelligence start-up DeepSeek has rolled out a major upgrade to its flagship V4 model aimed …
Rocket Lab plans to acquire Iridium for $8B and combine Rocket Lab's launch services with Iridium's satellite-based communications network to rival SpaceX
Australia says it plans to double the maximum penalty for any social media company breaking its minimum age law to AU$99M and grant more powers to enforcers
A look at security flaws, police misuse, and other concerns over the 100K+ AI-enabled automated license plate readers installed across the US, mostly from Flock
“You can't get a breath of fresh air ... without us knowing.” — Thanks to the rise of AI, a new kind of surveillance camera …
Verizon and the UK's BT agree to create a joint venture for their international businesses with ~$4B in combined yearly revenue; Verizon will pay $625M to BT
Verizon Communications Inc. and the UK's BT Group Plc have agreed to create a joint venture for their international businesses …
The US DOJ seizes nearly 400 domains for illegally streaming 2026 FIFA World Cup matches; last week, ACE, UEFA, and more shut down 44 domains linked to PirloTV
The U.S. Justice Department's Criminal Division has seized nearly 400 web domains used for illegally streaming matches at the FIFA World Cup.
WhatsApp rolls out username reservations globally, allowing users to claim a unique name before the privacy-focused feature launches later this year
GPT-5.6's system card indicates Sol is well below the level of the most worrisome Mythos use cases, suggesting all GPT-5.6 versions could launch without delay
While we wait for a general release, the system card is the best hint as to what is going on with the new candidate for America's Next Top Model, GPT-5.6.
Sources: disconnected US military databases may have led to the February 28 strike on an Iranian school; some see AI as a fix, others fear it amplifies errors
- A missile strike on an Iranian elementary school in February killed an estimated 120 children after outdated U.S. intelligence misidentified …
Sources: component and supplier lists, and photos of iPhone 18 Pro models, are among files a ransomware group stole from Apple's Indian supplier Tata
Sensitive lists of components and suppliers, and photos of Apple's upcoming iPhone 18 Pro models are part of files posted on the dark web …
Tidal adopts an AI policy that blocks wholly AI-generated music from earning royalties and removes AI-generated music that impersonates artists
TIDAL is introducing an AI policy that will automatically tag wholly AI-generated music in its app and block it from earning royalties.
Academic papers and conference materials offer a deep dive into China's all-CPU LineShine, which pairs custom 304-core Arm CPUs with HBM to top the Top500
CO-EDITOR, CO-FOUNDER, THE NEXT PLATFORM — It has been nine years since a Chinese HPC supercomputer was at the top …
Sources: CXMT and Tencent sign a ~$3B, three-year DRAM supply agreement for servers ahead of CXMT's IPO; CXMT is in talks with other major Chinese companies
Chinese memory chipmaker ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) has signed a long-term supply agreement with Tencent Holdings (0700.HK) …
Humanoid robot maker Apptronik raised ~$1B at a ~$5B valuation, including from Mercedes-Benz, which has a handful of Apptronik's Apollo robots in its factories
Jeff Cardenas says bringing humanoid machines into the mainstream will be a gradual process. — If you think of an office …
SCOTUS finds that Trump's 2025 firing of FTC Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter without cause was lawful, placing independence of several agencies in doubt
AI is forcing consulting firms to shift from hourly billing to fixed-fee or outcome-based pricing, a transition proving slow and difficult for the industry
As AI threatens to make the billable hour obsolete, professional-services firms wrestle with reinventing how they charge clients
Researchers say Z.ai's GLM-5.2 matches latest US models at finding security bugs, as critics question the US' lax approach in restricting Chinese open models
Adobe: online spending across all retailers in the US hit $26.4B during Amazon's four-day Prime Day event, up 9.3% YoY; Walmart and Target also hosted sales
Online spending across all retailers in the US hit $26.4 billion during Amazon.com Inc.'s annual Prime Day sale, according to Adobe Inc. …
Google says the Gemini app now offers personalized Nano Banana image generation, previously limited to Plus, Pro, and Ultra users, to eligible US users for free
Google announced on Monday that the Gemini app is now offering its personalized Nano Banana-powered image generation feature to a broader audience.
Australia-based Firmus partners with Nvidia to build its first data center in Batam, Indonesia; the 360 MW Nvidia DSX AI factory campus is developed with DayOne
Sources: hundreds of Meta contractors posed as minors to probe how competitor chatbots responded to prompts involving suicide, sex, and other high-risk subjects
Hundreds of contractors working on a project for Meta pretended to be kids—and then prompted rival chatbots like Gemini and ChatGPT to discuss high-risk subjects.
Shanghai-based Momenta, whose driver-assist tech is used by Toyota, Mercedes, and Audi in China, files for an IPO in Hong Kong, seeking to raise up to $751.1M
Sources: Baidu's chip unit Kunlunxin Technology plans a Hong Kong IPO at a $50B target valuation, asking investors to buy chips worth 3-7x their IPO investment
Waymo and Uber quietly ended their partnership in Phoenix in May; Uber says it is readying the launch of a separate autonomous vehicle partnership in the city
Waymo robotaxis are no longer available on Uber's ride-hail app in Phoenix, Arizona, ending a nearly three-year partnership in the city …
How a Polymarket dispute over a single syllable ignited a bitter debate; Polymarket uses Risk Labs' Optimistic Oracle to decide ~200K tough call bets per month
In mid-April, a long and testy argument erupted online over a seemingly trivial question: Did a guy in a video say “Donk”?
Google VP of Security Engineering Heather Adkins warns the EU's DMA proposals to open Android and Search could lead to a significant rise in fraud within weeks
Europe's pro-competition proposals could see Google Search and Android systems opened up. The company claims there are serious privacy flaws.
California strikes a deal with Anthropic to expand the use of Claude products across state agencies and local governments at a 50% discount
“A lot of departments are going to switch their usage to this contract, and that's very much our intent,” Chris Given, California's chief information officer …
SCOTUS limits the law enforcement use of “geofence” warrants, saying people have “a reasonable expectation of privacy” in their cell-phone location data
Zack Whittaker Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday limited the law enforcement use of …
Japanese prediction market startups Miraima and Poyp are using non-monetary loyalty points convertible to gift cards to bypass strict anti-gambling laws
Homegrown platforms, banned from real-money gambling, are tapping the country's loyalty-point culture to build an alternative to Polymarket.
Chinese robotics startup AI² Robotics raised ~$736M at a ~$2.9B valuation; Alibaba-backed X Square Robot raised an undisclosed amount at a ~$2.9B valuation
Two Chinese robotics startups have been valued at more than $2.9 billion in recent funding rounds, demonstrating steady interest …
An interview with Axon CEO Rick Smith, who transformed the Taser maker into a policing software company, as its revenue from AI policing tools rises 700%+ YoY
Taser and body-cam king Rick Smith is betting Axon's dominance—and his own pay package—on his tech-driven vision
Dealogic: Japan saw 18 IPOs in H1 2026, the lowest since 2011, despite stock market surges, partly due to Japan's lack of AI, data center, and chip startups
Tokyo's surging stocks fail to jump-start lacklustre listings market in first half of this year — The number of initial public offerings …
Internal documents: Meta is placing strict limits on how engineers in its applied AI division can use Claude Code and Codex, fearing inadvertent distillation
An analysis of US payroll data across 730+ occupations: employment among workers ages 22 to 25 in highly AI-exposed jobs is now shrinking by 3.8% per year
How the UK is betting on IT and AI to combat slow economic and productivity growth, including moving beyond the Golden Triangle of London, Oxford, and Cambridge
Regions outside London want a piece of the pie — In Sheffield, in the north of England, James Marshall is developing software …
Straiker, which develops tech for securing enterprise AI agents, raised a $64M Series A, bringing its total funding to $85M
As a new law bars DOD from working with companies whose lobbyists also represent blacklisted entities, DC lobbying firms drop companies like Alibaba and Tencent
Washington's most powerful lobbying firms are rushing to cut ties with Chinese tech giants including Alibaba Group Holding Ltd …
A profile of Jacob Andreou, the 33-year-old former Snap exec leading Microsoft's consolidated Copilot team efforts to catch up with OpenAI and Anthropic
Changpeng Zhao says Binance's MiCA application in Greece was fully compliant and close to approval by at least one EU regulator, but “other forces” opposed it
Source: Taiwanese authorities raided Super Micro's Taiwan office as part of a probe into the alleged smuggling of Nvidia chips to China; SMCI closed down 8.1%
Jefferies: memory prices are expected to rise 40%-50% in Q3 2026 and 30%-40% in Q4, as Chinese memory makers are unlikely to provide meaningful near-term relief
Memory prices are all set to rise further in the coming quarters of 2026 as persistent shortages continue to grip the market.
Quantifind, whose AI products help banks combat financial crimes such as money laundering, raised $200M led by Summit Partners
Masayoshi Son questioned Musk's orbital AI data centers, noting electricity is just 7% of costs and the AI race will be won on Earth within a few years
Brazil, which has struggled to standardize soccer talent scouting, is embracing AI-powered scouting apps that assess players by analyzing video clips and more
Digital Realty says it plans to acquire a majority stake in three fully leased Northern Virginia data centers from Blackstone-managed funds in a $7.8B deal
Digital Realty (DLR.N) said on Monday it would acquire a majority stake in three fully leased Northern Virginia data centers …
In Q2, there were thirteen $1B+ US venture-backed startup exits, either through acquisition or IPO, the most exits since the 2021 market peak
Startup exits valued at $1 billion or more are now more numerous than at any point since the 2021 market peak, Crunchbase data shows.
Baz releases Baz Planner, which uses four specialized AI agents to analyze code at the planning stage, and extends its seed funding by $9M to $17M
Kuo: the memory supply-demand gap will widen through 2027, with an estimated 15%-20% of 2026 consumer electronics capacity shifting to data centers in 2027
▌Start with my latest industry checks: The pressure on Apple has shifted from soaring memory costs to a widening supply gap.
South Korea unveils plans for new AI data centers backed by ~$357.5B from SK Group, GS Group, and Naver, targeting 8.4GW initially and 18.4GW by 2035
President Lee Jae Myung speaks during a public briefing on the government's three flagship mega projects at Cheong Wa Dae in Seoul, Monday.
Sources: Amazon is weighing using OpenAI's and its own Nova models to cut costs after Anthropic raised prices for using its models in Amazon products
Catherine Perloff /The Information: